Yesterday we finally opened the hive for the first time to see what was really going on in there. The anticipation was killing me. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but considering how it was established, we weren’t surprised. One of the two boxes of frames had only empty cells and capped brood we presumed was dead since the bees weren’t on that comb to speak of at all. In the other box we did find nectar and honey stores, lots of workers, lots of drones, and no eggs or larvae. We also found queen cells!

The queen cells we saw were opened on the side like these two. This is the result when the first queen emerges and then goes around destroying her rivals. It means that there may be a virgin queen wandering around in the hive. The weather here has been cool and overcast for a while now. If she’s in there, Mary, or perhaps we should say Mary II should come out on a mating flight some sunny day and then eventually start laying eggs. This would be the ideal outcome of this situation since that would perpetuate the genes from the queen that had a hive survive through the winter. I’m crossing my fingers and hope to report good news before the end of May.

Anita, there were at least four queen cells that we noticed during the inspection and on the pictures I took. We're thinking since they were so obvious that we wouldn't have missed them on the cutout and that they were made after. Or I should say we're hoping that.

Mil, I can't wait either! For today, though I need to sort through the old comb and slap together a solar wax melter. It's starting to smell up the house.

About Me

Shady Character

I adopted the handle (do people even say "handle" anymore?) back when I had my first web site by the same name. It was all about shade gardening and how ornamental shade gardens can have character. In truth, I'm a pretty nice guy!